I doubt it will hurt anything to use the top 25 board during the offseason. I meant to keep a running tab of the tourney but time got away from me.

Florida broke through in their 12th CWS appearance and brought home the title, mostly because they got great pitching and they didn't screw up. Usually it is the hottest hitting team in Omaha that wins, but the Gators pecked and clawed in each game (besides one blowout loss to TCU), silencing TCU twice (#6), LSU twice in the final (#4), and Louisville (#7). It sounds strange coming from an FSU guy, but I'm happy for them and happy for Sullivan. They have laid a couple of giant eggs in the CWS recently and they were getting to FSU purgatory of not being able to win here. I am glad they have that off of their shoulders. The Tigers are getting a stud in Faedo, and I appreciate that their pitchers get to the mound and pitch, even if they ruin that pace with constant mound visits.

The CWS in general was a great deal of fun as 5 national seeds qualified along with traditional power/underseeded Fullerton and "Cinderellas" Florida State and Texas A&M. The Noles and Aggies both took advantage of the 2 big regional upsets, with Sam Houston knocking out Tech and Davidson stomping North Carolina. FSU knocked out Sam Houston by a score of 19-0 after winning a pillow soft regional of Auburn, Central Florida, and Tennessee Tech. FSU and A&M played competitive in Omaha, but in the end, FSU did what FSU does, which is simply not play good enough fundamental baseball in Omaha, and the last 5 teams standing were all top 7 seeds.

The downer was LSU fans, who after decades of a great relationship here and again in abundance here, came ready to throw things on the field and act like human alcohol containers. They were of course not all bad, but they were bad in large numbers and they disrupted games. The strike zones were abhorrent, too, but that's a problem for all of baseball.

The tourney in general started off on a bit bad foot. After a lot of bid-stealing by teams like Iowa, Oklahoma State, and Rice, the Big Ten inexplicably was given 5 bids, and teams with great recent history like South Carolina, Ole Miss, and Miami (who had a 44 year streak in the tourney and was 18-14 in the ACC) were left out. Nobody embarrassed themselves more than Nebraska, who after winning the Big Ten regular season title, lost badly to Yale and Holy Cross, never getting to see #1, 4-loss Oregon State. ACC (aside from North Carolina) and SEC played well, as did the state of Texas, which had 9 teams in the tourney.

I thought the Long Beach regional, despite being extremely late at night, was very compelling, with three great games between Long Beach and Texas, who was one of the teams (Missouri State, Fullerton, among others) who should have gotten the regional inexplicably given to FSU. Kentucky regional was good, Florida was pushed by Bethune Cookman, the Fayetteville regional with Oklahoma State and Missouri State was very compelling as well.

Wake/UF was an exciting super regional marred by rain. Other than that, favorites tended to take care of business, even against other good teams.

Good analysis 45. I'm glad UF got off the Schneid. Their pitching came through big time. I had a personal interest in LSU this year because the young pitcher that won the game that propelled the Tigers into the finals vs UF (Caleb Gilbert) is the grandson of a friend of mine, the founder of the Rogers Hornsby chapter of SABR in Austin.

But the CWS this year I thought was a solid tournament. It was hard to see Texas Tech fizzle like they did in the regionals. Same for UNC, though I loved having Sam Houston and Davidson win like they did. SHSU got on a roll, until they played FSU, and then they cratered. Texas had beaten them early this year in Huntsville. That team senior and junior stars were largely recruited by Texas coach David Pierce and his staff when he was the coach there, before he went to Tulane for two years.

And I agree with you about the LBSU-Texas regional matchups as being really good baseball. Same for Okie St and Missouri St. I enjoyed watching those games.

Since I don't ever get tired of baseball....I'm ready for 2018 college baseball season!!

The meteorology society's annual meeting comes back to Austin in January, Gary. If Texas has a home game between January 6 and January 11, I'll be in the market to try to acquire a couple of tickets. It'd be fun to have dinner again as well.